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Stupid mistakes . Share the laughs

03-26-2013, 11:38 AM

This is a post on Electrician talk. It has turned into the funnies read! PA - LEEZE FES UP

I'll start. I'm running new gas line in the attic of 100 Year old Brothel. It's a huge old wood frame building. I can see the plate, measure My offset and drill. with My electricians 5ft. flex bit flex bitt. I come down the ladder walk into
the room, and this is what I saw. I had drilled through the top wood rail of a double hung window ! I had miss measured! Empty building ,thank God. I didn't t break the glass. I did a bondo and paint repair. I came out good and no one was the wiser. YOU'RE NEXT

I can build anything You want , if you draw a picture of it , on the back of a big enough check .

Had a similar one. Customer wanted a frost-free spigot on the rear of her log cabin. As it couldn't be repaired easily if a mistake was made I had the customer point where she wanted it. At her fingertip I put a dot and drilled. After 16" of drilling I couldn't find the inside hole. Drill drill drill some more...no hole. I knew I was well into the basement space both by depth and measurement from the edge o f the house. turns out that I had drilled the exact center of a 2x10 floor joist. Never once did the side of the board buckle and I was perfectly straight.

The customer was then PO'd when I drilled a 2" hole in center of the joist to allow for installation of the water line to the spigot. It was all pex so there were no torch marks or anything.

~~

... it was plumbed by Ray Charles and his helper Stevie Wonder

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Running telephone risers in an old apartment building, my partner missed the mark and ended up in a clothing closet. When he pulled back the 16" auger bit there was clothing attached! One time when they were short of techs in repair, they sent some of us linemen. I hated working in people's homes and apartments, I'm an outside kind of guy. I walked up three flights of stairs in some South Bronx apartment building with my bad attitude in tow. I banged on the tenants door and was met by a guy who didn't know his phone was out of order. I started arguing with him that he should have known since it was his phone. I was on the wrong floor. My attitude changed after that incident.

Had a similar one. Customer wanted a frost-free spigot on the rear of her log cabin. As it couldn't be repaired easily if a mistake was made I had the customer point where she wanted it. At her fingertip I put a dot and drilled. After 16" of drilling I couldn't find the inside hole. Drill drill drill some more...no hole. I knew I was well into the basement space both by depth and measurement from the edge o f the house. turns out that I had drilled the exact center of a 2x10 floor joist. Never once did the side of the board buckle and I was perfectly straight. What's the chance of drilling center of a joist ? 16 to 1 ?

The customer was then PO'd when I drilled a 2" hole in center of the joist to allow for installation of the water line to the spigot. It was all pex so there were no torch marks or anything.

Funny bringing back clothing ! Better than BLOOD ,I GUESS

I can build anything You want , if you draw a picture of it , on the back of a big enough check .

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We were using a rodding truck to place ropes between manholes for a future cable pull. The print showed a straight run of about 600ft from manhole to manhole. We sent the rod in and it was clear sailing, but it stopped around 500ft and would not not go forward or pull back. We put a little spin on it but no good. We walked the run and off set onto the sidewalk was another manhole the engineer did not mark on the print. When we opened the lid we found about 200ft of 9/16" stainless steel rod coiled around the manhole. We had to use a gas powered cutoff tool, it was a mess.

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Tool, I'll give you a oh F-k drilling story. My old partner was sent to place a pole outside a no tell motel years ago. He picked out a spot on the sidewalk but his foreman insisted he move it over a couple feet, (never found out why?). He broke the concrete with a sledge and proceeded to place the auger from our pitman polecat onto the dirt. He said he drilled down a few feet and bangxxxxxxx water shot out of the hole and almost three stories into the air! He hit a big water main.Sorry I wasn't there to see it

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My second deployment overseas, this time in Qatar. A road lighting project was well underway, with an excavator digging the trench for all the conduits. Base Safety had already marked out the various utilities in red spray paint. However, the pole light base locations where also marked out in red squares. Now at the pole light locations, the operator was instructed to dig deep for the concrete base that would be installed later. Well, the crew came accross a red square that was misunderstood to be a pole location. Ever hear of the term "X marks the Spot"? With one swoop of the bucket, a 10 inch water main, a 6 inch sewage line, and a 11KV (Yes kilovolt) electrical main were cut at the same time, all crossing at the exactly dead center of the hole. So what we had here in this crater was a 10 foot geyser, that stank to high heavens, and was electrified.

Now THAT was a mess!

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Was finishing a basement room and homeowner was pulling wires from the panel into the basement for future use as the room we were finishing was going to close up the space between the house and garage. He asked if I could help since I had a 3/4" - 5' flex bit. I drilled down through the top plate of the garage wall and helped him fish my fiberglass sticks to the basement. Well fast forward 5 years, their house flooded from a cracked toilet tank. They had to move to the back bedrooms and used the hall bath that never got used before. A few days after moving bathrooms they got a wet spot on the lower wall. Turns out I drilled right through the sink leg and didn't know it. Luckily the house was gutted for the most part due to the damage from the toilet and the owner is good friends with our main contractor. We laughed about it pretty good. Somehow the wire didn't end up through the pipe thankfully.

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lol I am embarrassed to even tell this one. I was about 19 and I was helping my father drill a 1/2" hole in a cinder block wall to run a small piece of cable through. I was right up into the joist pushing and I felt the drill bit break through the other side. So I go over to the other side and I can't find the stupid hole, it's too dark and dirty so I tell my father to hold up, I'll go back around and shine the light through and for him to see if he can find it. Well when I got back to the other side I saw this 1/4" 2 foot length of dowel rod when the idea struck me to push the stick through the hole. So I jam it through and I hear the biggest OOOHHHHH ever. Apparently my father was up looking around waiting for the light and I ended up poking him in the eye. :/

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I'm doing a whole house window replacement , 2 stories. I had set up My ladder Up to the 2nd story bath a little earlier. Top of ladder was just below window sill. I go up the ladder and right in the window is Sharon My customer !.Poor Gal is on the pot facing Me. Her Panties around Her ankles. We stared at each other a second , Both dropped our heads ,Me backing the ladder. I still feel terrible. That's life

I can build anything You want , if you draw a picture of it , on the back of a big enough check .

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That was clearly an accident, unlike many of the female customers I had open the door half naked! Seriously, not funny, and not a turn on. I remember when I was a kid living at home, if there was a repairman coming to the apartment my mother was fully dressed and the place was always spotless. I had one young attractive asian girl who had an extension line running the length of her living room floor covered in panties! Who does this? I had one incident where a very attractive lady asked my into her home to check out a line while I was running cable through her backyard. She was wearing a bathing suit, real stunner. She showed me the phone and talked about running an extension, some small talk and then her husband walked in from another room. Just seemed like they were up to something? I do think there are crazies out there looking to cause trouble with working guys. Never took the bait.

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When I worked for the cable company a coworker went to a house for a trouble call. It was a upper class house that belonged to an older wealthy man. His wife was a younger attractive lady and answered the door in a bathrobe. The cable modem was under the desk and when he knelt down he looked over to ask her a question only to see her sitting on the office chair "showing him everything" if you catch my drift. He left quickly wondering WTH that was all about but gave him a great story.

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Back in the late 80's was doing a 400 unit apartment building. It was actually 5 separate buildings. Since the project was done in phases, a couple buildings were already occupied. The building maintenace man tracks me down to show me a leak in a kitchen sink. We knock on the door, it's 12 noon and he tells me that the owner works nights and might be sleeping. So we wait a few minutes.

He opens the front door and we walk in. Just at the same time as the owner walks out of the bedroom. She was tan head to toe and all the way through turned around and we waited till she answered in a robe. Turns out she owns a tanning saloon.

About 6 months later I run into her in palm springs, spring break. My buddy who was with me, didn't believe me, so I said, look at her license plate on her car. "I tan u"

That was the best.

Of course then there is the opposite.

Had a call to reset a leaking toilet, 2 gay dudes answer the door naked I lock myself in the bathroom and pull the toilet. Go to empty the water in the tub, open the slider and there is an aluminum dong hanging from the hand held shower hose.